


reruns and reruns

by blackbluewoo



Category: A.C.E (Beat Interactive Band)
Genre: Cuddling, Domestic, Established Relationship, Kinda shitty, LMAO, M/M, happy birthday ava, kinda sad, sleepy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 15:50:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16267409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackbluewoo/pseuds/blackbluewoo
Summary: in which junhee is tired and sehyoon comforts him





	reruns and reruns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [avarry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/avarry/gifts).



it’s late.

 

or, at least, that’s what junhee can assume- assume from the darkness that envelops him like a heavy blanket, from the weariness that settles itself in his bones and body like he’s a doll filled with cotton, bursting at the seems. it feels as if time is trickling through barely parted fingers like sand moving through a swirling hourglass, going on forever.

 

he tries to recall what he had done before he’d fallen asleep- sprawled across the sofa. it’s frame is hard on his back, t-shirt too thick against his skin that seems to burn with warmth. faintly, past the numbness in his legs, he can feel the soft material of a blanket intertwined with his body, drawn up under his shirt that exposes his stomach, his shorts that expose his thighs.

 

he feels like moving, shaking the fever that digs it’s nails in and clings to him, rubbing away the sweat that has seemed to bury itself under his skin. yet, all junhee can do is stare- his vision bleary, the only light blue and weeding its way past his eyes right into the wrinkles of his brain, the corners of his mind, filling it with the noise of speech.

 

the television is on. in the distance, junhee can hear people speaking, low and in english that he doesn’t understand- words he can’t unpick, sentences that come out garbled and distorted and not quite right. the faint figures of the people against the neon light come as a shock to his tired, worn brain- the pale outline of a woman reading the news against the flashing lights in the background.

 

_ it’s a rerun, _ he belatedly realises. rerun of an old comedy show, from a few years ago. it’s some sort of joke about the news that junhee doesn’t understand and doesn’t think is funny. maybe if he was more awake he’d be able to blink away the confusion, the sheen of exhaustion, and laugh at the joke. maybe a few hours ago, maybe yesterday, he would’ve leaned on sehyoon’s lap, let the older run gentle fingers through his hair while they both watched television and laughed together.

 

sehyoon. he isn’t beside junhee, and he hadn’t taken them both to bed, so the reasonable conclusion is that he isn’t home. he isn’t home and junhee can’t wrap his arms around him or listen to the deep murmur of his voice or kiss his cheeks and that makes junhee kind of sad. a weird kind of sadness, a sadness that wakes him up a little, forces him upright as his eyes blanket his vision in another sleepy filter, the kind that makes everything seem like indecipherable shapes.

 

he’s been laying down for so long that when he straightens, he feels dizzy. everything feels heavy and dull and his mouth is dry, and it feels like he’s been running and running in this maze for what feels like forever when he’s just been laying on the sofa. everything swirls in his gaze, like a whirlpool around the centre point of his vision which is the door frame. the door frame, which is shut but junhee can see the pale, yellow light of the corridor outside peeking through. it illuminates the floor of their apartment, casts a strange, washed out silhouette across the carpeting.

 

the television is driving him insane. junhee reaches for the remote, brings his entire hand down clumsily on the several buttons that only sehyoon knows how to work. it’s okay, though, because as soon as the murmuring fades, replaced by the electric hum of the wires, junhee can hear the clock. the clock that ticks and echoes throughout the entire empty apartment, noise reverberating from where it resides in the kitchen just beside the window overlooking some other broken up apartment complexes and several construction sites.

 

junhee gets to his feet, slowly, feels his bones crack and legs almost give out beneath his weight. 

 

from there, he shuffles into the kitchen. his socked feet rustle against the carpet, hit a few empty plastic wrappers and discarded cardboard boxes on his way. the entire apartment is shrouded in darkness, and if a headache wasn’t roaring in the temples of his head, junhee would think to turn the light on. instead, he just blinks away sleep, progressing slowly to the door that gives way to their kitchen.

 

clunkily, he makes a grab for a cup. and almost misses- his hand just scraping past an elaborate pile of glassware. they’re all packaged, coated and wrapped up like they’re protected against the cold, so if junhee dropped one it would land with a  _ pop  _ and simply roll away. the thought still terrifies him, so with shaking hands, he takes to the plastic instead. the plastic cups he himself bought for sehyoon, whose nervous antics resulted in several shattered glasses amongst the tiles of their old apartment.

 

junhee runs some water, and takes a sip. whilst doing so, he glances up at the clock- numbers barely registering in his mind even after what seems like minutes of staring.

 

5:12am. the sun would be coming in a few hours, and sehyoon would be coming sooner. in fact, in a few minutes maybe, junhee would hear the rattle of the key in the lock, the creaking of the door pushed open. maybe in a few minutes he would feel sehyoon’s arms hooked around his waist, warm body pressed against junhee’s own, lips buried into where his neck met his shoulder. 

 

he has work in less than four hours. he has to catch a train in three hours. he has to eat breakfast before that, take a shower, he has to pick out his tie and his suit and his shirt and iron them all.

 

so much to do.

 

with a clatter, junhee drops the plastic cup in the sink. he watches as it rolls around, its gentle scraping making a lot of commotion for so early in the morning- but at least something that disrupts the ongoing hum in his mind.

 

just as he thought, not even a few moments later, a few seconds of junhee staring at the kitchen sink passed, there’s a rattle. there’s a creak, a clang, a curse, and then the soft patter of footsteps.

 

“jun?” a voice calls.

 

junhee groans in reply, eyes still aimed towards the sink, watching how the moonlight reflects in the plastic of the cup. he feels like screaming, feels like filling the silence that engulfs him like he’s drowning in it. 

 

sehyoon’s arms wrap around him, gentle. his torso presses against junhee’s back, eyelashes fluttering against the nape of his neck. he’s cold, just a little, hands a sharp contrast against junhee’s body heat but his face warm against the back of junhee’s neck. he lifts a hand, brings it behind him to hold in sehyoon’s hair, drag him forward to meet their lips in a chaste kiss. his lips are a little dry, face too cold, but it’s okay. it’s okay.

 

the way sehyoon covers him makes him feel like he can breathe. he’s whispering something soft, something probably half-reassuring and half-scolding about junhee being awake, but junhee doesn’t listen. he just tries to bite back the tears in his throat, the sudden relief he feels by being completely swamped in sehyoon. 

 

the clock is still ticking, but now he can hear other things. like sehyoon’s soft voice, and his breathing, and the thrum of his heart beneath his skin and his tiny laugh when junhee kisses him again, this time lazily on the side of his face. he’s warm, and gentle, and good.

 

“i left the tv on,” sehyoon comments. “i thought you liked background noise.”

 

“i know. i do.” junhee whispers. his voice comes out hoarse.

 

“i would’ve put you to bed but i had to leave,” sehyoon says. he’s planting kisses along the side of junhee’s neck now.

 

junhee feels like crying, like shrivelling up into the smallest ball possible, and letting himself fall apart. sehyoon would probably still know how to reassemble him, to adjust the pieces so they fit together again. maybe he’d hold junhee’s hands, kiss his palms, kiss each broken part of him that has to give way in being put back together.

 

“i know,” junhee repeats.

 

they’re both standing there, barely lit up in the light of the moon. it shines through the slashes in the curtains, the kitchen shining in some semblance of silver, almost ethereal in the light of the night. junhee wants to stay there forever, beside sehyoon, the older pulled behind him, arms secure around his waist. he wants to melt into it, forget that he has work in four hours and a train in three. if he stays like this long enough, he can forget.

 

“why did you turn the tv off?” sehyoon asks.

 

“it was all reruns.”

 

if that reply irritates sehyoon, he doesn’t say anything. that’s the one place where him and junhee are different, where junhee is impatient and persistent and fluttering, mind always wandering to new and possibly better things. sehyoon prefers reruns, prefers carving these types of things into the rhythm of his heart, but junhee could never be like that. they're different only in that sense.

 

when they first dated, it worked pretty well. time wore that thin, but they love each other. more than reruns, more than new things.

 

“did you sleep well?”

 

junhee nods, tired. sehyoon kisses his shoulder again, then traces over it with his finger. he mumbles something that sounds like  _ good.  _

 

they don’t move from there, not for a few minutes. they just stand, sehyoon’s grip around junhee loosened, his head pulled back slightly, rocking on the heels of his feet. 

 

“still tired,” junhee mumbles.

 

“i know,” sehyoon says, quiet, in reply. 

 

they’re silent for a few moments, letting their thoughts brew in the emptiness. junhee hears the hoot of an owl outside the kitchen window. 

 

junhee has never been one for reminiscing, for rethinking, for mulling over time and events that he let slip through his fingers. even though he isn’t that person, has never been that person, his heart aches a little- stomach feels a little coiled at the memory of him and sehyoon tangled together in their bed, in the warm bed last christmas time, hands over hearts and smiles that seemed to go on for eternity. everything then was cosy and warm, time was slow and endless, like someone had plugged an hourglass and they were just watching the sand sit there.

 

even this summer, with the endless sea splayed before them, the pebbles that once resided in their palms that skimmed the water and crabs that played in the sandcastles they had made. the sun beat down on them, and time didn’t exist. they would never run out. sehyoon’s hair was sandy blonde then, eyebrows almost invisible, but he was still beautiful. he was always beautiful.

 

“i hate your graveyard shift,” junhee mumbles.

 

sehyoon laughs again, a little louder this time. he pulls the younger close again, so they’re not even centimetres apart, and presses a few more kisses along his exposed shoulder, up the side of his neck. he even goes so far as to nuzzle the back of junhee’s neck with his nose, punctuating it with another kiss. 

 

“hey,” junhee protests sleepily. “that doesn’t help.”

 

“sorry,” sehyoon says. “i just want to save up.”

 

junhee melts into sehyoon a little, lets himself feel small for a second, before asking  _ “for what?” _

 

sehyoon leans close, mouth only inches apart from junhee’s ear. junhee can smell the peppermint on his breath.

 

“for a good restaurant,” sehyoon whispers. “and a good ring.”

 

there should be a rush of excitement there. junhee’s heart should beat faster, he should gasp and kiss sehyoon. all he can do is turn around,  letting the older man’s arms around him release and fall to his sides instead. sehyoon looks down at him, his head slightly tilted.

 

“i just want to be with you,” junhee says. “i don’t care about the ring.”

 

“i know,” sehyoon replies, lifting one hands to brush at junhee’s cheek lightly. “but i still want to do it, for you.” 

 

junhee feels like someone’s replaced the blood in his veins with caramel that trickles slowly, painfully, that allows him minutes before he’s fully able to process what sehyoon is saying. his mouth still feels dry, skin still flaming, and his eyes are burning. the light is too bright, the thought too big for his mind that seems to want to make everything small and compressed to comprehend it. he takes a step forward, hangs his head into sehyoon’s shirt.

 

he would have to wait, be patient, relive this night like a thousand reruns playing at the same time in the back of his mind. he would have to listen to the beat of the clock, to the rattle of the key and creak of the door, alone. until sehyoon joined him at twelve past five in the morning, at the ungodly hour where its just reached morning but it’s still night time, when junhee’s mouth is dry and his eyes are wet and his throat has a lump right in the centre.

 

tears well up in his eyes. too many lonely nights.

 

sehyoon whispers “hey, hey, hey” like a mantra, like a chant, thumbing at junhee’s eyes to wipe away the few teardrops that spill over. he feels stupid, like a child, like a kid trying on their parent’s shoes and falling over. his head hurts, it aches, and his mind feels hollow.

 

“let’s just run away,” junhee whispers into sehyoon’s shirt. “you won’t have to do anything, you don’t have to work. we can join the circus.”

 

sehyoon laughs, heady and semi-cheerful but still riddled with exhaustion. he brushes his hands through junhee’s hair, again and again, runs his hands down junhee’s face and around his ears and plays with the small hairs on the back of his neck until he’s stopped heaving his shoulders, sobbing into sehyoon’s shirt.

 

“we’ll buy a good apartment,” sehyoon assures him. “we’ll get a dog,”

 

he tilts junhee’s head up. sehyoon looks strange in the light, sharper and more refined and not unlike an angel. he blinks heavy, like his eyelashes are weighing his eyelids down. dark circles carve themselves into his silver skin, skin that shines in the moonlight and eyes that seem like pools of honey in the white.

 

“i don’t want to live the same life, every day,” junhee whines, soft, subdued by sehyoon’s knuckle skimming over his cheekbone.

 

“you won’t, trust me. everything will work out.” 

 

they look at each other for a few moments, before sehyoon closes the distance between them in a kiss. again, it’s dry, chaste, quiet, but it releases some of the tension in junhee’s bones- pierces his elastic skin and lets the caramel spill out so it doesn’t fill his lungs and drown him alive.

 

sehyoon touches his face. his fingers are light and fleeting, across his cheekbones and his closed eyelids and his cupids bow, and then his lips hovering over junhee’s own. he wipes junhee’s tears, grazes his hands down his bare shoulders and pulls him close, as if he could protect him completely from everything he wanted to run from. 

 

he lets sehyoon takes him to bed. everywhere apart from the kitchen is dark, cloaked in shadows and silhouettes. he guides junhee through those, comforting, even as they progress slowly and nearly trip over furniture, over half unpacked cardboard boxes and sheets that once covered sofas while they painted the walls. the older man only pauses, lets go of junhee’s hands, to turn the tv off, to flip the switch to stop the humming that fills the entire apartment.

 

everything is silent, and small. sleep is coming back to junhee in waves when sehyoon brings him to their bed, kisses him soft and light on both his cheeks before moving to his own side of the bed.

 

the night hides them, clothes them, the curtains shield the moon from their tired eyes. junhee gathers sehyoon close, slinging an arm across the older man’s waist, torso pressed against his back. sehyoon hums, grapples for junhee’s hand beneath the blankets and finds it, linking it and bringing it to settle on his hip.

 

“you’ll wait, right?” sehyoon asks.

 

junhee pauses. he just wants to sleep. his entire body is screaming at him.

 

sehyoon’s insistence on perfection and junhee’s resistance to commitment had made them a more than unlikely couple. their mutual friends had bet a few times on their break up date, on the day that sehyoon wanting to watch friends for the seventh time would send junhee over the edge.

 

it never did. even if white noise filled the empty spaces in junhee’s mind, even if tiredness echoed through his body and made him hang his head low in the coming morning, he would wait. he would always wait.

 

“yeah,” junhee mumbles, burying his face in sehyoon’s hair. “of course.”

**Author's Note:**

> happy belated bday ava!! ily  
> this was alot of me tryin to make it look n sound pretty   
> but i hope u like it anyway  
> leave a kudos if u like :o n a comment would be nice hehe


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